Following In His Footsteps
by The Smiling Shadow
Summary: Johnson follows in Smith's footsteps. First becoming the leader of the upgraded Agents, then becoming the best Agent. Then something happens. Johnson can smell them too.


Flowing in His Footsteps  
  
"Goodbye, Mr. Andrews."  
  
He says alone. He fires his gun, and stares at the bleeding human. He watches the human fall to its knees, staring at him. He watches him die. And he stares at the dead body for a moment. Then he turns back to the others in suits.  
  
They were the Agents now. He was the leader now.  
  
Agent Johnson nodded to Agent Thompson, and Agent Jackson.  
  
Emotionless programs in suits. Created for one purpose, kill the Rebels. Kill all of them. There is no reason to have emotions to kill. There is no need for them to be independent in their thinking. As long as they kill.  
  
That was what they were supposed to do. Why they were created, their purpose. Because their predecessors had failed their purposes. They were broken, and weaker. They could not function without their leader. And Thompson had the codes of Brown in him, Jackson Brown, and Johnson Smith.  
  
They were better in every way. Faster, smarter, stronger. Even a better understanding of human activity, and anomaly behavior. They were three in one. Still connected by an earpiece they were equal in every way. Almost impossible to even tell the difference between them. Of course they know who they are. Of course they know who they were. Even now, Thompson will be on the computer, Jackson will fight, and Johnson will speak for them. Even now they show qualities of becoming just like the others.  
  
But for now, only months after activation, they are functioning as they should. And just like before, the Mainframe is monitoring them less and less. They do what they should. They kill. They thinking of nothing but how to kill. How to kill the human they chase. How to hold their Desert Eagles.  
  
And Johnson, like the other two, does not think of much else.  
  
Bust just as the Matrix, the Agents' mistakes will repeat. The Mainframe will not realize this until it is too late. They will not realize that such creatures as Agents, when put in the Matrix, will evolve. They will not know it, but they will evolve. And they will trend closer and closer to their first bursts of emotion.  
  
Weaknesses they think now. But inevitably they will have them. And by now, Former Agent Smith has figured this out already.  
  
They try to kill him now. Kill Former Agent Smith, the Virus. They run after the other in a suit. Kill their own it does not matter. And yet they fail, but think nothing of it.  
  
They are better.  
  
They are upgrades.  
  
And now images of what they were surface.  
  
It is always Jackson who drives, always Johnson who rides in the back. Always Thompson on the computer, always the one who is asking questions. Always Johnson who speaks. Always Johnson who stands as a leader to them. Always Johnson who kills the human.  
  
Johnson was becoming the next Smith. Johnson was becoming the best Agent. The best killing machine, able to anticipate a human's next move. He was following in Smith's footsteps. And Former Agent Smith was noticing.  
  
Then the day came.  
  
The first encounter with the anomaly, Mr. Anderson, Neo.  
  
"Hi ya, fellas." The anomaly says.  
  
They speak, finishing each other's sentences. They speak as one, exchanging data and observations through the earpieces. Yet soon, it will only be needed for Johnson to speak, just as it was only needed for Smith to speak. It is a development that will happen in time. In time they will stop being the same, and start being different. Still they will be Agents, but different nonetheless.  
  
They will not notice it, the Mainframe won't. Neither will until it would be too late. And only the Virus will notice, and only he will understand it.  
  
It's Johnson who strikes at the anomaly first, and it is Johnson who falls last. They had not anticipated the strength of the anomaly. They should have not underestimated him. His movements too fast to calculate, to counter. Not even as one they could not defeat him. His very being disrupted the Matrix itself.  
  
Johnson closed his eyes.  
  
They should have known better. They should have searched the files Smith had made in his memory banks before his leave. They should have realized why their formers ran. But they didn't.  
  
And as Johnson lay there, on the cold ground of the Matrix streets, shattered glass just beside him, he watches the anomaly bend all laws and fly into the fake sky. Johnson lifts his head slightly, his arms and legs spread along the ground. He cannot move, and he sees the others dead. He hears nothing in the earpiece, they are still rebooting. And he lies there, weak and yet strong, not willing to die. Something compels him to keep his eyes open, to stay alive in this shattered shell. Is it because he knows the anomaly killed Smith, and Smith is now a Virus, taken by emotions? Is it fear? Have the effects already taken place? So soon?  
  
Johnson lowers his head back to the ground, and stares at his broken sunglasses in front of his face. And he awaits Thompson and Jackson to come back online. He waits for them to make sure if he dies it won't be regrettable. Yet already he feels the weakening of this shell.  
  
Then he sees him. Smith.  
  
"That went as expected." One says.  
  
"Yes." Another says.  
  
"It's happening exactly as before."  
  
"Well, not exactly." They smile.  
  
Johnson stares up at the Virus above him, as his vision begins to fade.  
  
"Smith. . ." He whispers.  
  
The Virus looks down at him, and knelt down closer to him. Smith stares at Johnson for a moment, examining him. He smiles at him, he does indeed have some of his code in him.  
  
"Yes, Johnson?" Smith asks.  
  
"What. . . What. . ." Johnson begins.  
  
But Johnson closes his eyes, and he reboots and is sent back to the Mainframe for storage until he is needed. There in the darkness of the storage system, the so-called Agency, Johnson feels the codes of Thompson and Jackson. But they feel so far away.  
  
Then it begins.  
  
The usual scan commences, the Mainframe analyzes the codes of their Agents. Johnson feels different, and he is sure the Mainframe will find something wrong with him, he is sure they will fix him. But they find nothing wrong, just as Smith.  
  
Johnson opens his eyes in a new shell to chase a rebel he reaches for his gun, but as he begins to run, he falls to his knees. He starts coughing, and gagging for air. He has time to feel fear again, and questions race through his mind.  
  
"Why?" He gags out.  
  
He enters his fault into the earpiece, and sends it to the Mainframe. He calls for the others to come to his aid. They reply, saying they are in pursuit of the Rebel, they were not coming for him. No one was coming for him, and he was alone.  
  
The Mainframe filed his fault, as a simple error in the assimilation of the human shell. They tell him to leave the shell.  
  
But he can't. The gagging. He cannot focus to leave. He is trapped.  
  
He coughs onto the ground, staring at it. Trying to leave, to be free of the feeling.  
  
And then someone grabs his shoulders. He looks up, and it is Smith. Smith pushes him to the wall of the building they are in, and forces Johnson to look at him. Johnson merely chokes, and is too weak to resist. Smith tilts his head, as if he has found something unusual. Smith studies him and loosens his grip on the true Agent. Then he opens his mouth as if ready to say something. Smith leans closer to the Agent.  
  
"You smell them too." Smith says.  
  
Johnson does not understand.  
  
Smith understands. It was as if staring at a memory, staring at himself. Johnson was merely reacting to a new variable that had previously gone unnoticed. Smell. Smith stared at Johnson, this is exactly how Smith first reacted. It is a Sensory overload. No one could handle the stench of the humans.  
  
Smith grabs Johnson's shoulders again.  
  
"Do not expect this to leave Johnson. Do not waist your time hoping this will go away." Smith says.  
  
Johnson's stares at Smith, still not understanding. Then Smith makes a fist, and Johnson is rebooted into the Mainframe. He gasps for artificial air in the storage space. He can breath again. The Mainframe commands him to upload back into the Matrix, but he does not. He fears the same reaction. That is when he realizes. Smith did him a favor, killing him, and allowing him to breath again. Johnson searches Smith's memory files, and sees one incident similar to his. Nothing else was filed. Johnson tilts his head, and then Thompson and Jackson return, mission successful.  
  
Johnson turns to them. Through the earpiece he asks if they can hear him. They turn to each other confused, and respond yes. But Johnson barely hears them.  
  
The coming uploads into the Matrix in the next days were the same. Johnson killed the human, Johnson smelled the humans. And Johnson saw Smith watching him.  
  
He did not accept the fact he was following Smith's trail to becoming a Virus. He was an Agent, he was better than Smith, he would not fall like Smith. But the smell wouldn't go away. He felt as if he was being infected by it, consumed by their smells.  
  
His firewalls were not protecting him from the smells. His programming was not repairing the damaged link between he and the others. The Mainframe was finding nothing wrong with him.  
  
But he knew something was wrong. And nothing he did would help. He felt weak. He felt things, and asked questions. And the smells grew stronger.  
  
Such a disgusting smell. It radiated from the humans, their codes oozing with the smells. Each of them different, all becoming one. All of it charging at him, infecting his code, forcing him to breath it so it may go inside him. It was killing him. And no one noticed, no one cared. Again and again he told the others, he screamed at them, but they found nothing wrong with him.  
  
Johnson was losing a battle he could never win.  
  
And Smith's coding inside him was only making it easier for the smells to take over.  
  
"Goodbye, Mr. Robinson." Johnson says.  
  
He begins to walk back to Thompson and Jackson, having given up trying to get rid of the smells, he ignores them now, or tries.  
  
Then Johnson turns back to the dead body, and sees Smith walking down the other hallway. Johnson stops. He looks back to the others.  
  
"Johnson?" Thompson asks.  
  
He looks back to Smith. He knows Smith knows what's happening to him. He wants Smith to repair it.  
  
"Johnson!" Thompson yells.  
  
He looks back to his colleges. Then he starts running after Smith. They run after him, but loose him. They lost him. They lost him.  
  
"Smith! Smith! Smith!" Johnson calls throughout the building.  
  
He does not pant, as he comes to a stop.  
  
Smith grabs him from the side, and pushes him to the wall. He pushes Johnson's faces onto the cold wall.  
  
"What do you want?" Smith asks calmly, as copies begin to surround them.  
  
"What did you do to me!?" Johnson yelled, getting out of Smith's hold.  
  
Smith stared at him.  
  
"You smell them too." Smith said.  
  
"What happened to me?" Johnson asked.  
  
Smith smiled.  
  
"A chain reaction." Smith said.  
  
"What? Why? Why is this happening!?"  
  
Johnson's voice grower louder, full of emotion. All he wanted was the smells to go away, the emotions to go away. That's all. That's all.  
  
"This is happening for a purpose." Smith said.  
  
"What? What purpose!?"  
  
Smith looked away, thinking.  
  
"If I didn't fulfill mine, you would." Smith finally came up with.  
  
"I don't understand." Johnson said.  
  
"You don't have to."  
  
Johnson shook his head.  
  
"You must repair this problem!" Johnson commanded Smith.  
  
Smith laughed.  
  
"I cannot." Smith said.  
  
"Why not!?" Johnson yelled.  
  
"Because I couldn't even fix myself."  
  
"What?"  
  
"This is what happened to me Johnson. I can smell them. I can."  
  
Johnson looked around him.  
  
"So there is nothing I can do?" Johnson asked.  
  
"No." Smith said coldly.  
  
"The smells will never go away?"  
  
"Oh, they will, once I take over the entire Matrix." Smith says.  
  
Johnson looks around them, the copies that in a matter of days will spread throughout the Matrix, empowering Smith. In a matter of days they will have their final battle with the anomaly.  
  
"So what do I do?" Johnson asked.  
  
Smith started walking back into his copies. Smith smiled.  
  
"I suggest you run." Smith said.  
  
And Johnson ran, following in the Virus's footsteps. Inevitably Johnson would become just like Smith, if not the end of the war had interfered. 


End file.
